


King Falled II

by luckjustkissedyouhello



Series: King Falled [2]
Category: King Falls AM (Podcast)
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Aftermath of Torture, Aftermath of Violence, Found Family, Gen, Hospitalization, Hospitals, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sammy Stevens's A+ Self-Esteem, content warnings in author's notes, sammy stevens has anxiety, sammy stevens whump
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-13
Updated: 2021-02-25
Packaged: 2021-03-13 13:53:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 19,174
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29402979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luckjustkissedyouhello/pseuds/luckjustkissedyouhello
Summary: Sammy and his found family deal with the events of King Falled.
Series: King Falled [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2159982
Comments: 9
Kudos: 22





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Huge thank you to: KFAMfan for the beta, and Luckyxxxluna for the medical information (any mistakes/embelshments are mine).
> 
> I do not at this time have an update schedule. I have chapter 2 written for the most part, so that will come soon.
> 
> See the end of the work for content warnings. Again...there's a few.

Sammy is pretty sure the nurse is trying to kill him. 

The nurse insists he’s doing this for Sammy’s wellbeing but as Sammy struggles to put one foot in front of the other, he is positive the man wants him to regret ever being born. Sammy would gladly admit that he often does regret being born, if it would end this torture—

_ —Fuck. _

Sammy has to halt his forward shuffle for a moment when he sucks in a panicky breath much too hard and the extra pain of that on top of trying to walk makes him weak-kneed. Or maybe that’s the thought. Both, probably. 

As it turns out, using the word torture as a metaphor, even to one’s self, after actually fucking being violently interrogated by a hammer wielding asshole and his robot buddy isn’t great for his anxiety. Who would have thunk it? Apparently not his dumb ass. 

Nothing is good for his anxiety, right now, of course, including this fucking trek. He’s paranoid the nurse thinks he’s milking this, but walking  _ hurts _ kind of everywhere, and he just...has to go slow or he’s going to lay on the ground and cry like the giant baby he is being. And he’s sure, he’s so damn sure, the nurse thinks he’s being a giant pussy. Shit, Sammy knows he’s a pussy. It’s just a little pain. Why can't he push through it? 

There’s a lot he can’t push through right now. A lot he’s being a little bitch about. A pussy (yes, that insult echoes through his head in his father’s voice). Two days have passed since his first nightmare, and now all Sammy seems to do is have nightmares, waking up screaming and gasping. Nightmares are nothing new to him, since The Void Incident - nights without some bit of dream induced terror were the rarity - but the content of his nightmares have just changed from Void Shit to half memories, half dream distortions of what happened with Ernie and fucking RoboTim (and of course, he keeps...seeing memories of it all while awake too, now that his memory of the whole fucking mess is pretty much back - _ yippee _ !). Why can’t he  _ man up _ and stop screaming half the hospital awake every time he closes his eyes?!? 

And of course, unlike before, the bad dreams don’t just happen at night because Sammy’s still so exhausted he can’t seem to keep awake for more than an hour at a time. It’s easier to count the hours he spends awake than sleep, and Sammy hates that, because sleeping all the time feels like a backslide into his post The Void Incident funk and he needs to be better than to relapse into  _ that _ \- he’s going to runout of goodwill from his friends if he goes back to being like that again...but of course that’s not enough shit for him. He’s also waking up screaming and hyperventilating, flailing around or fighting whoever tries to keep him from hurting himself. And that’s the real problem, not his fear of a relapse into Sad Sack Sammy (as Lily coined it, all the way back in college when he would get into a funk for no good reason). The nightmares suck for two reasons. One, it hurts a lot. And two, the bigger fucking reason, it’s embarrassing as fuck to be so weak so loudly. He’s pretty sure everyone in the hospital - his floor at least- thinks he’s a pathetic pussy, but nobody says that to his face (of course), they just look so damn sympathetic, which is worse. There are people around him that must be really actually sick or hurt that need to recover, not hear some weak little bitch that got captured by a third-rate mobster and a glitchy robot freak out and lose his damn mind screaming his fool fucking head off every couple of hours.

His fucking weakness is hurting his friends,  _ his family _ , hurting them more and more, he can see it. Bad enough he got kidnapped and beaten up a bit, worrying everyone (Ben’s eyes are permanently red-rimmed - he’s  _ medicated  _ for fuck’s sake). But he’s scaring them when he screams like a banshee every time he closes his eyes and has a little bad dream. He actually yanked his IV out fighting Lily’s hold on him, yesterday. Lily kept him from falling out of bed and hurting himself worse, but he managed to pull it out and he woke up, finally, to a (minorly) bloody hospital gown and a panicked and not hiding it Lily (the latter was way worse than the former, a little blood and a new IV line being placed was nothing compared to the fear on Lily’s face). Lily still seemed freaked out, and it is fucking all his fault. 

He’s had a tendency to have nightmares his whole life (he once gave Jack a blackeye coming out of a nightmare and spent a week and a half sleeping on the couch before Jack could coax him back into their bed with the promise of putting a pillow wall between them - Sammy made him keep it there for over a month). So yeah, his subconscious mind’s always been cruel to him, even before King Falls added new levels of terror to his life. Opiate pain meds always made it worse (the blackeye incident happened after Sammy had dental work and the dentist gave him Vicodin), and he was still on a shitton of them now, didn’t think that he’d be off of them any time soon considering how much it fucking hurt to simply breathe let alone move like he was now - and that was while he was taking the meds. So...he just needs to be stronger than a few bad memories and suck it up. He just fucking can’t seem to get there. 

Currently, his nightmares and his memories are the least of his problems, because the nurse that has him walking. Well. It’s more like an awkward, pathetic shuffle because the act of waking is a fresh agony Sammy could really do without in his life. He can’t even tell if it hurts more to lift his feet up or to put his feet down - it all fucking hurts. Both actions jostle his ribs, pull on the muscles across them in some way. He had hardly noticed the pain in his right thigh from the two nail gun wounds when he woke, given how much everything else hurt, (and the duel discomforts of a chest tube in his side and a tube in his dick - thankfully both gone now,) but goddamn is he aware of them now - his thigh is on fire. 

He’s seriously considering channeling his inner toddler and just laying down on the floor and refusing to move. Except he’s not sure he can get down on the floor let alone back up. And the nurse said it was important for him to get out of bed, so he doesn’t develop pneumonia, which kind of sounds like it would be both awful for him - any time he coughs when he kind of wants to die - and awful for everyone else to deal with. They’ve worried about him enough. Pneumonia would be too much. 

So now he’s shuffling back from his twenty minutes in hell, or a trek around the nurse’s station (Sammy was taking the first option, thank you). A nurse’s station that wasn’t more than a dozen yards from his hospital room, mind you, so needing twenty minutes to walk this far is fucking embarrassing to begin with. He’s taking forever and the poor nurse probably thought they’d do this quicker, Sammy’s being too much of a pussy about it all...and Sammy knows he’s already causing so much trouble any time he closes his eyes. He doesn’t want to be difficult, or get sick and make even more trouble and stress than he’s already caused -  _ is _ causing. So he's doing as he’s been told, even though it’s miserable.

“Almost back, Sammy,” the nurse tells him, voice kind and not at all annoyed, cutting into Sammy’s dark thoughts. And maybe Sammy’s just oozing self hatred or something because the guy adds in: “You’ve made great time.” He’s got his hand on Sammy’s back, not pushing him forward, but a steady presence all the same. Ready to catch him if he falls (goddamn Sammy doesn’t want to fall, it would  _ hurt _ ). 

Sammy’s left hand is around his IV pole in a white knuckled grip. He should have known this kind of torture — ’ _ no, no, don’t think of that word _ ’ the scared, coward part of his mind whimpers at him, so he shuffles away from it just like he shuffles one miserable foot in front of the other— this kind of  _ fun _ was coming when the hospital staff suggested Ben bring him pajama/sweat pants. Before they got him up, there was no need to worry about who would see his pale ass sticking out of the hospital gown. On the bright side, there’s no longer a tube up his dick. So that’s a point for mobility. And apparently this will help keep him from dying of pneumonia, even if he sort of wishes he was dead at the moment - okay, not dead, but unconscious. 

Sammy is miserable, but again, he really,  _ really _ , doesn’t want to worry his family any more than he already has. So he does as told. Does this and the breathing exercise they have him doing a few times an hour when he’s awake -which for the record also fucking sucks, pulling in deep breaths to raise the ball in it’s tube. At least those exercises are only for a few minutes at a time. This has been going on for _ fucking _ ever.

The nurse must see either how pissy Sammy’s getting, or how much pain he’s in, because he falls silent, except to say, as they turn the corner down the short corridor towards Sammy’s room: “Once I get you settled back down, your doctor’s okayed an extra dose of pain meds. If you need it.”

Sammy nods. He’s not sure he can walk and breathe and not cry  _ and _ talk at the moment, so he focuses his energy on the first three. But he’s sure the nurse gets the message that yes, Sammy’s gonna need it - as if the fact that Sammy’s sweating so bad from the pain and the effort of walking that he’s soaked through his hospital gown that’s doubling as a shirt wasn’t enough of an indication. 

They get closer to his room. There’s a desk pulled in front of it, to the left of the door, nearly blocking the doorway. Deputy Duncan Beadle sits behind the desk, with a paper cup of steaming coffee at his elbow. Duncan smiles warmly at Sammy and the nurse as they approach. Sammy’s still not sure what to do with the knowledge that he just learned leaving his hospital room for the first time that the Sheriff’s Office is watching him 24/7. He suspects that Ben, Emily and Lily are also being watched. It makes the shifts the three of them have been taking to visit him make sense. Sammy’s hurting too much to think about why Troy thinks they still need the protection. Ernie and TimBot are dead. Sammy remembers that much, he remembers that Troy shot Timbot and must have shot Ernie too. 

Sammy can only manage a tight smile and slight head nod at Duncan, but the man in question just continues to smile up at him like he expected as much. “You made good time, Sammy,” Duncan tells him.

“That’s what I said!” The nurse cheerfully agrees and Sammy thinks he might just choke on all the positivity. 

Instead, he just nods again and pushes forward. He can’t stop now, he doubts he’ll be able to get himself moving again if he stops. Why is the bed so far away from the door? A half dozen steps later, he’s sitting back down harder than he meant to, biting back a curse at the surge of pain the hard landing causes. 

“Steady,” the nurse says, and helps ease Sammy back so he’s laying on the bed.

The nurse leaves the room, with a promise that he’ll be right back. Only then does Sammy realize that the room is very full. He had been so focused about getting to sit back down (okay, lay back down), that he hadn’t looked around. Only Emily was in the room when he left, but now Ben, Lily and Troy are with her, Troy standing and the other three sitting on the other bed that they’ve taken to sleeping on during their shifts with him. 

Sammy has that paranoid feeling of ‘oh hey everyone in this room was talking about me before I came in,’ except he thinks this time he might be actually correct. Sammy frowns at them, still breathing heavier than he’d like (it’s embarrassing he’s winded from talking a goddamn walk  _ and _ because it fucking hurts to breathe), so he doesn’t ask. He doesn’t have the breath to spare. 

Ben gets up and pours water from the mauve plastic pitcher into a comically tiny plastic disposable cup, holding it out to Sammy. Ben, of course, stretches so Sammy doesn’t have to reach too far with his good arm, so he doesn't pull on his ribs more than necessary (after the night Timbot showed up at their house and tried to squeeze them to death, broke one of Sammy’s ribs, Sammy would do the same thing, afraid to raise his arm too much, and Ben would affectionately tell him he was ‘T-Rex Arming’ as a way to call out when Sammy was in more pain than he was admitting to and now Sammy feels like that but even more handicapped). Sammy’s hand is shaking slightly when he takes it, but he smiles at Ben, grateful beyond measure that he didn’t have to ask for it, that Ben knew he needed it. 

Sammy hates being an invalid, but it’s easier to take when Ben anticipates his needs (or when anyone does, for that matter, though Ben seems the best at it, which is hardly a surprise that Ben takes so well to caretaking) because he doesn’t have to ask for the help and openly admit how weak he is. It is embarrassing having to ask for the things he should be able to do himself but can’t because he can’t handle a bit of extra pain. His body is betraying him, his brain isn’t much better, and Sammy is so deeply embarrassed by both that his face burns when he holds the empty cup out to Ben - his stupid hand shaking while holding an empty fucking plastic cup. He’s just the epitome of strength, isn’t he? 

Ben sets the empty cup back down on the tray, frowning at Sammy like he can read Sammy’s thoughts. Ben glances at everyone else, face settling in a way that says he’s about to tell them to leave, and Sammy has no fucking clue why. 

Everyone, Ben included, looks so…tense and tired. Poor Troy looks like he’s aged a decade in the last—wait...huh. Sammy doesn’t even know how long he’s been in the hospital, how long ago it was that Ernie and RoboTim kidnapped him in broad daylight with very little trouble (Sammy folded like a lawn chair from a broken arm, let them take him)...but, the point is, Troy looks old and worn down in a way Sammy’s only ever seen once before, when Gunderson fired him. 

Sammy knows it’s his fault. If he hadn’t let himself be captured so easily, if he hadn’t been so easy to tortu—  _ hurt _ — then maybe Troy wouldn’t have had to kill RoboTim and Ernie and then he wouldn’t look so stressed now…Everyone looks so damn stressed out, don’t they? And it’s Sammy’s fucking fault. He’s not making it any better by sweating and shaking in pain and fucking screaming his fool head off every time he tries to sleep. He’s hurting and scaring his family by being so fucking weak now, after being weak then. He wants to tell them to go, to stop fussing over him or worrying about him, he’s fine, just a pussy about pain...but he doubts they’d listen to him. They don’t seem to understand that he dug this grave he’s laying in so he might as well just suck it up and deal with the pain. It was his choice to let himself be grabbed, his failure to keep Ernie and Timbotnick from beating on him….he deserves every bit of the —

—A hand touches his shoulder. Sammy flinches out of his thoughts and into the moment with a sharp inhale that ends in a pinched off fucking  _ whimper _ (he sounds like a weak little bitch). Sammy bites his bottom lip until he tastes blood, determined to not make that sound again. There is a limit to how much patheticness even his friends, his family, can take, right? Sammy is fucking terrified of hitting that limit, and certain that he is teetering at the edge of said limit. 

“Sammy?” Ben asks, voice quiet, as if it’s just him and Sammy alone in the room. As if Sammy’s entire fucking family this side of The-Fucking-Void isn’t here to watch him wallow in the grave he dug for himself, allowing himself to be taken so easily. “You okay, dude?” Ben lowers his voice, thankfully. “You look like you do when you’re being cruel to yoursel—“

“—What?  _ No _ . I’m okay,” he cuts in, trying to sound as firm as a lying, grown ass man sweating through a hospital gown because of a little pain can sound. Which admittedly isn’t very firm. And he’s a terrible fucking liar. Especially to Ben. 

So of course, Ben’s face is full of doubt. “Really? You sure you’re o—“

“— _ Ben _ ,” Sammy pleads, and shuts his eyes (well, eye - he can still only open the one, his left is swollen shut still) against Ben’s concern. He’s like a fucking cartoon character, his eyes are so big and worried. After a moment he looks back at Ben. He’s still looking worried. “I’m just...a little sore.” Sammy loves the man, he does...but damn if it doesn’t hurt to look at Ben right now, knowing how badly he’s fucked up. Sammy thinks he can see tears in Ben’s eyes. 

Ben huffs. Sammy knows he wants to argue, to ask more questions and goddamnit he’s sure Ben knows how frustrated Sammy is with himself and his pathetic reaction to a bit of violence (Jack-in-the-Box  _ Jesus _ it’s not the first time Sammy’s been wailed on by someone, not even the first time taking a beating landed him in a hospital bed, why is he this fucking pathetic about it all?). Ben Arnold is the most empathetic person Sammy has ever fucking met. Normally that’s one of the things he loves most about his best friend, the heart that lives perpetually on Ben’s sleeve...but right now he really doesn’t want to deal with Ben trying to tell him he’s not a pathetic little bitch. He’s not sure Ben would believe him if he told him the truth, Ben’s like that, he has too much faith in Sammy Stevens. He’s sure Ben and the rest of them will soon realize he is a pussy on their own. He’s a coward, after all, so he goes with the ‘let them see’ option. 

“Okay.” Ben agrees eventually, reluctantly. “Though I think the use of the word ‘sore’ is a gross understatement of how bad you must be hurting, Sammy. You’re shaking and sweating.”

_ Fuck _ . He really hoped that a) Ben wouldn’t notice the shaking on top of the sweating and b) that he’d stop by now. But he can’t. He’s shaking and sweating and he must look pathetic. “I’m fine,” he repeats, but he can hear how weak and pained he sounds, even to his own ears. He wouldn’t believe Ben if the situation was reversed. Of course, Ben wouldn’t be like this if the situation was reversed. Ben is a real man that doesn’t lay around feeling sorry for himself and crying about a rough couple hours with a sadist and his robot pal. 

Ben sighs and sits in the chair next to his bed, scooting it back so he’s not blocking Sammy’s one-eyed view of the others. Hovering, ready to hop in the very second Sammy needs help to do something he really should be able to do himself, goddamnit. Sammy doesn’t say anything, there’s not much he can say, is there? Except maybe apologize again, to all of them, for the trouble he’s caused, is causing. 

Sammy opens his mouth, about to do just that, but Troy beats him, talking first: “You’re lookin’ much better than the last time I saw you, after your surgery, in the ICU. You were down for the count and had a tube—“

Ben clears his throat. As if he’s trying to shade Sammy from the reality of his own injuries, his time in the ICU (that admittedly, Sammy doesn’t remember, though he’s told that is normal and not concerning that he doesn’t remember getting to the hospital even if they said he was awake and semi lucid) like Sammy needs to be protected from what happened to him. Because he was an idiot and let himself get kidnapped. 

A horrible realization occurs to him. Ben is protecting him from the reality of what happened to him. Because Sammy’s making Ben, all of them, think he can’t handle what went down with him, RoboTim, and Salcedo. They  _ know _ how weak he is. They probably all are waiting to see when he breaks completely like the little bitch he is. 

Sammy doesn’t know what to say to address that, so he just forces a small smile and says: “Hey Troy.” His words are slow, quiet. It’s still hard for him to talk and breathe, it hurts and requires him to move his face more than he’d like, but, of course, nobody ever interrupts him, they just let him talk so slowly. Sammy’s voice sounds weak and breathless to his own ears, he really hopes it doesn’t sound that pathetic to everyone else. 

Troy’s been dealing with this mess. The mess Sammy caused. He had figured that was the case, what kept Troy away, though he also thought there was a decent chance Troy had come by when Sammy was asleep - he really was doing a lot of that. Herschel seems to keep having that excellent timing. Lily told him Hersch was there within an hour after Sammy was brought in to the hospital, and didn’t leave until he was forced to, and even then he only left  _ after _ he saw Sammy briefly in the ICU. Since then Herschel just sticks his head into the room, sees that Sammy’s asleep and leaves before anyone can stop him. The one time Ben tried to call out to him, Herschel threatened him with bodily harm in typical (if quieter than normal) Herschian fashion, if he woke Sammy. Now he knows Troy apparently hadn’t been by. Which Sammy totally understands. He’s got a mess on his hands. 

“And you’re up and walking, Sammy, that’s great!” Troy says in a voice that’s way too cheery, even for Troy, pulling Sammy back to focus on the moment (another side effect of opiates - Sammy’s attention span is shot to shit). 

Sammy gives a shallow laugh - ‘ _ fuck!, no laughing _ ,’ he reminds himself for not the first time - and shakes his head. “Not great. I’m never doin’ that again.”

“Oh yes you will. Tomorrow, Sammy,” the nurse says, coming back into the room. He’s always fucking saying Sammy’s name like Sammy’s going to forget it, but the man is holding a capped syringe with the promised dose of pain meds and Sammy can’t be annoyed by an angel. “You might even do a second lap tomorrow!” 

Sammy opens his mouth to tell the nurse he most definitely will not be doing a second lap anytime soon, but to his surprise, Ben jumps up to his feet, smiling big, but still worried on the edges. “Kirk!” Ben nearly shouts. “I didn’t know you worked here!”

Kirk, apparently the nurse’s name is Kirk, Sammy thinks he was told that before the day's tortu—fun started, smiles at Ben. “Hey Ben. I do. Have for a few months now!” Kirk inserts the first syringe with saline, clearing his IV line, saying: “Here you are, Sammy.” 

First the taste of saline fills Sammy’s sinuses, the back of his throat, and then the weight of the morphine settles over him, and he very nearly sighs in relief. Not all the pain goes away - and he still suspects that all the morphine does is make him not care that he’s in pain - but he can think past the pain now, breathe a little easier. 

“Sammy, this is Dwayne Libbydale’s fiancé Kirk,” Ben explains.

Sammy is pretty sure Kirk told him his name but not that he was Dwayne's fiancé, so this is new information. To be honest he got the mans’ name with the news that he was supposed to be getting out of bed to walk around and then there was pain so Sammy doesn’t feel too guilty he didn’t remember it...Well maybe he feels the normal amount of guilt. 

Still. Thanks to the morphine Sammy’s response is a bit slow. He turns from Ben to Kirk. And then it dawns on him.  _ Dwayne _ . Fucking Dwayne! “Oh! Shit. Are you both okay?” Sammy asks. He is sure that he told Troy and Ben what the SI assholes wanted.  _ Who _ they wanted. And that Sammy didn’t tell them (fuck, he hopes everyone believes him when he swears he didn’t tell). Which means he’s sure everyone in the room knows, except maybe Kirk, that he didn’t squeal. “I didn’t tell them about him, Kirk. I promise.” It seems very important that Kirk knows this, right now. It’s worth the pain of each breath to talk.

Kirk’s pleasant smile morphs into a look of confusion, a line appearing between his eyebrows. “Tell them..?” Kirk asks, trailing off. A moment later, he adds in, just as confused: “Dwayne?” Kirk’s voice is small, then his face goes blank - the kind of blank that people do when they are trying hard not to think about something upsetting in public. “Sammy. Is this about why you got--”

Troy coughs.  _ Hard.  _ Sammy looks at him. “No?” Sammy says, trying to guess what Troy’s trying to frantically, but silently, tell him. 

Kirk clears his throat, and Sammy looks back at him. “Sammy,” he starts, and the only word Sammy can think is brittle. Kirk looks and sounds so damn brittle. “Is--Is that why you got hurt? Dwayne’s…” Again, Kirk trails off. Like saying it out loud is still a thing he won’t do, can’t do. After a breath or two he settles on: “...pastime?” 

Kirk sounds so upset. Sammy shakes his head quickly, broken face be damned, and says: “No! No, I got hurt because I’m a fucking pussy—“ Lily makes an offended noise, but Sammy plows on. “Who let himself get kidnapped because I couldn’t fight back after—.”

It’s Ben that stops him. Ben starts trying to interrupt him when he says ‘pussy’, but Sammy tries to ignore him like he ignored Lily, except Ben wins by shouting: “—Ooooh-kay!” Actually fucking shouts. Sammy flinches. “Sorry -- loud.” Ben does look sympathetic for a moment, but then his face turns hard. “But you are not going to finish that sentence, Sammy Stevens! You are absolutely not to blame for what two sadistic fucking maniacs did to you!” 

Ben sounds furious. Sammy stares straight ahead. Ben and everyone else are on his right side, so Sammy can see them. He just pretends he can’t. Like he pretends his eyes — eye — isn’t blurring with unshed, stupid fucking tears. 

“I--I’m sorry. I have to go. Now.” Kirk says and all but runs from the room. He pauses at the door. “Sammy, if you need anything, use the call button,” he assures, obviously clinging to his professionalism with his fingers. Then he’s gone, closing the door firmly but not slamming it, behind him. 

Sammy stares after him. “I think I just broke up an engaged couple,” he says, his voice quiet, dazed. He so didn’t see the conversation going that way. He just needed Dwayne to know he was safe, that Sammy didn’t rat on him.

“Not your fault,” Ben says with a hard-edged firmness he rarely has in his voice when talking to Sammy. “You did nothing wrong, Sammy.”

Sammy discovers if he turns his head just a bit more to the left, he can’t see anyone in the room. That makes it easier to have this conversation. He can’t run away like he normally does, like he wants to, the coward that he is. He’d pull the ‘I’m too tired and hurting too much for this conversation’ card if it wouldn't make them worry. He’s just a shit friend like that. “Doesn't feel that way,” he admits, very quietly, voice shaking just as much as the room is shimmering from the tears he’s not (yet) crying. He’s not even sure which ‘nothing wrong’ Ben is implying and he’s disputing. Both, maybe. 

Ben sighs. “Sammy--Sammy look at me.”

Sammy does not. He  _ can’t _ . Ben is fucking wrong. Sammy got himself caught. He folded after a little bit of pain from a broken arm and went with them. Now he’s laying here in a hospital bed all pathetic and screaming his fucking weak-ass head off every time he closes his eyes. And now he’s pretty sure he just revealed to Kirk information he didn’t have about why Sammy was so badly tor--violently interrogated. 

Ben reaches out, like he means to turn Sammy’s face to look at him, a gesture Ben’s done a thousand and one times before. Ben Arnold is a tactile guy. 

Sammy fucking flinches.

The room is very silent. Everyone saw him flinch. From Ben.  _ Ben _ !

Sammy can’t breathe, and it has nothing to do with the fucking pain in his ribs. He can’t get himself to acknowledge the flinch, to apologize. He’s a coward like that. Flinching from his best friend, the one person Sammy knows for certain would never hit him. 

Goddamnit he sucks.

The silence stretches on. Sammy tries a thousand times to say ‘fuck, Ben I’m sorry I’m a giant pussy and flinched from you,’ but can’t get himself to start.

Finally, after a few minutes that feel like hours to Sammy, Ben speaks. He looks at Troy and says: “Maybe this isn’t the best time, Troy.”

“Yeah, buds, I think maybe it is too soon to talk about…” Troy trails off before he says what he wants to talk about, but jumps right back in. “You just woke up a few days ago, Sammy. You’re not…” Again he trails off, afraid to address the giant elephant in the room that is Sammy’s weaknesses. 

Sammy on the other hand? He’s so fucking done with himself, with  _ this _ . With everyone ignoring what is so obviously right fucking in front of them but they’re too worried about how weak he is to properly call him out on how weak and pathetic he’s being and it is driving him fucking nuts. He snaps. Starts talking faster than he should, voice raising the more they try and object to his words. 

“I’m not what?” He asks, rage clear in his voice. “What? Not sleeping without having nightmares? Not awake for more than an hour at a time? Not strong enough to handle being in pain? What, Troy? What am I  _ not _ ? I’m sure as fuck  _ not _ strong enough to withstand a little broken arm! I  _ let _ those bastards take me, and now I’m here, screaming my head off every time I try and sleep, crying about getting my ass kicked like a  _ fucking _ —“ He has to stop. He can’t fucking breathe anymore. Yelling as it turns out is a terrible fucking idea. He squeezes his good eye shut, and hates himself for the absolutely pathetic whimper that leaves his mouth as he gasps for breath.

The room is so quiet he can only hear himself gasping for breath. Nobody else is speaking. Making a sound. Except for his pathetic ass, proving what he’s already saying. Weak. Pathetic.

“Sammy,” Emily says, recovering from hearing him speak the truth first. She says his name like you would talk to a wounded wild animal. “No one is saying that about you. Nobody.”

“Or thinking it,” Ben adds in because the little bastard knows him well.

Sammy keeps wheezing. Fuck it hurts to breathe. Why is he so pathetic? Why won’t they fucking admit it? Can’t they hear him right now? Can’t they see? 

“Sammy—“ Ben starts. 

Sammy can’t take them lying to him. “—Why is Deputy Beadle in front of my hospital room?” Sammy asks, cutting off whatever further lies Ben is going to say to spare his feelings. Ben allows himself to be interrupted, even with how long it takes Sammy to ask the question, long weak wheezing gaps between his words and all.

Ben sighs. Lily and Emily are looking to Troy, then back at Sammy. Lily looks like she will answer if Troy doesn’t. Sammy doesn’t have the energy (bravery) to turn his head to see Ben, but he gets the feeling Ben doesn’t want Troy to answer. Sammy’s morphine thick brain has time to process all of this, before Troy answers. It takes that long. He gets the feeling that this conversation, the silent one everyone in the room seems to be having, has occurred more than once already, without him. 

“Well, bud, I — no,  _ we _ \- we just aren’t sure if the folks down at the Science Institute are done bein’ a threat to you and the super friends, Sammy.” 

“Sammy and the Super Friends. Great band name,” Lily tells Emily, a desperate attempt at humor to mask her concern that goes uncommented on, aside from the small grin and gentle pat on her leg that Emily gives her.

“You mean Gunderson,” Ben snarls the bastard’s name through clenched teeth. 

Well. That realization sends a shock of adrenaline through his system. He hasn’t really told them he can remember what happened, though he suspects the whole screaming like a banshee and fighting imaginary TimBots in his sleep every few hours has given that away. “I think...I think Ernie said that S.I. was…” he doesn’t know what word to use, so he goes with, lamely: “...involved.” 

“Oh, he most definitely did, Sammy,” Troy says, frowning hard, looking downright pissed. It’s the angriest Sammy’s ever seen Troy. “I know that for a fact, Ja—“ Troy flinches, catching himself from finishing the phrase, which makes Sammy love the man even more, even though he hates himself for seeming too pathetic to even hear the name (it never occurs to him that Troy could’ve stopped himself for Lily’s benefit too). “I know that for sure, Sammy.”

“Gunderson confessed?” Sammy asks, because it’s easier than thinking about why Troy cut himself off. 

Troy laughs. It sounds bitter and furious. Sammy’s never been scared of Troy, not the first night they met when Sammy didn’t know what kind of cop had just pulled him over, not even when he tried to stop a murderbot from hugging him and Ben to death, Troy had been confident and calm then, but Sammy had not been scared of what Troy was capable of. Sammy is a little bit scared of him right now, and he is genuinely impressed. If Troy’s looking that furious, Gunderson is about to be more miserable than Sammy is at the moment. 

“Nah,” Troy says, shaking his head, lips a flat line. “He’d never do something respectable like tell the truth. I did go talk to him about what his former employees - one of which he told me didn’t exist not so long ago - did to you, but he didn’t admit to anything. Tried to feed me a line of horse manure about Ernie and you having a personal feud. Said some rather unkind words about you, Sammy - tryin’ to get me to throw a punch and get me in hot water, I reckon. I’m man enough to admit that it nearly worked, what he was sayin’ about you. He was just awful, Sammy. If I wasn’t sure that you —  _ all y’all  _ \- needed me as Sheriff to keep your fool asses safe, I’d have put him on his no good ass myself!” 

Troy’s grip on the laptop in his hand is white knuckled. He’s actually, Sammy realizes with a sinking feeling, shaking with rage. Over Sammy. Goddamnit Sammy could have caused Troy to lose his job.  _ Again _ . Sammy is near dizzy with relief that Troy didn’t fall for Gunderson's bait. Sammy getting grabbed could have ended Troy's career. 

“And...and now...Now I wish I pulled out my gun and shot that no good piece of shit right between the eyes.”

The room is very quiet, aside from Sammy’s wheezy breathing. Troy seems to get that he’s stunned them all into silence in his rant, and looks down at his feet. 

“Shit, Troy,” Ben says, quietly, sounding choked up. Sammy knows the feeling. 

“Hey, man,” Sammy says, sounding just as raw as Ben. “Come ‘ere.” He can only raise up his left arm to indicate what he wants, but Troy isn’t a dumb man. He comes over, onto the left side of Sammy’s bed, and leans into Sammy’s ginger, lopsided hug. 

When Troy pulls away, he not-so-subtlety wipes at his eyes. “Thanks, bud,” he says quietly. 

Sammy’s struck by it again - Troy has aged since all this happened. He sucks for doing this to Troy, to his family. Sammy doesn’t say anything about how exhausted Troy, everyone, looks. He doesn’t know what to say.

Thankfully, there’s Lily. Lily Wright is very rarely at a loss for words, or one to let an awkward silence go on too long. 

“Troy, why did you think we all would need to talk together?”

Troy clears his throat. Looks at Sammy and then pointedly at the floor. Troy is a look you in the eyes kind of man. The fact that he won’t do so  _ now _ scares the shit out of Sammy. 

Sammy rolls his head a bit so he can see Ben. Ben is frowning down at the tiled floor. He’s got one hand tapping against his jean glad leg in a quick jerky rhythm.

Fuck.

Then Troy speaks: “Alright. Here’s the deal, Sammy. Do you know how we found you?”

Sammy frowns, starts to shake his head but remembers at the last minute that moving his head like that hurts too. His face hurts. Too much talking. There’s too much going on to end the conversation now, though. “No. I...I haven’t thought about it,” he starts to admit. Until this moment, he never thought about how it happened. “Sorry, I—“

“—No need to apologize, Sammy, I imagine you’ve had a lot of other things to think about,” Troy says, not unkindly. 

“When I’m not sleeping. Or fucking up Kirk’s day.”

“Sammy,” Ben says a desperate note of pleading in his voice. “You didn’t—“

“—I did. But thank you for denying it,” Sammy says. His voice wavers a bit. Sammy is seriously wondering if he broke something in Dwayne and Kirk’s relationship. 

Troy runs his free hand over his short hair, after a moment of them all just sitting there. “Naw. I don’t think this is a good time for this all. Sammy you’ve only been awake for a few days. And—“ 

“ _ Troy _ ,” Sammy all but begs. They all know how he is when people dangle information like this. And just because he’s sounding a bit miserable doesn’t mean this isn’t obviously something he needs to know. “Tell me what’s going on. Why you’re here... please.”

Troy sighs. Staring at his feet, he says: “We found you because of Dwa—The Dark. He put illegal surveillance in all the SI properties. Cameras with audio.”

Sammy fucking laughs. He can’t help it. He pays for it and can’t breathe for a moment. Nobody says a word, choosing instead to just look at him, waiting. Wondering why he’s laughing, probably. When he can speak again, he explains. “Sorry. That’s just an amazingly sneaky plan from a peacock of a man that normally runs around in spandex causing chaos everywhere he goes.” Which. Ow. That’s a lot to say. 

“Leather,” Ben corrects - sounds almost like himself.

Sammy’s face hurts just as much when he smiles as when he frowns, but it is worth it. “Leather,” he gives, correcting himself. 

“Yeah. It was sneaky,” Troy agrees. “But illegal and not to mention dangerous.”

“I mean it’s The Dark,” Ben chips in. Which is exactly what Sammy was gonna say. “Illegal and dangerous are his two favorite words.”

Troy gives a humorless laugh and finally looks at Sammy. Troy has striking blue eyes on any given day. Right now, even a few feet away, Sammy can see they’re stormy, wet, and full of guilt. Sammy hates himself - he put that look there. But he doesn’t look away. He can’t. The u-turn in Troy’s demeanor makes Sammy’s head spin. Why is Troy crying?

“Sammy. I haven’t had a chance to say this, but...you gotta believe me. By the time we realized you weren’t coming back inside you were long gone. I’m so sorry for—”

No. This is not happening. He can’t let his co-bff blame himself! “Troy. Fuck, man. Shut up! I love you buddy but shut the fuck up.” Oh. Sammy’s openable eye is blurry with tears just hearing Troy attempt to apologize. Sammy goes on as fast as he can - aching ribs and face be damned. “You did nothing wrong. Ben was with you. Was it his fault?“ 

Sammy preemptively holds up his left hand to silence Ben, and yes, Ben starts to agree, so yeah, holding his arm up across his body hurts a bit (a lot), but it is worth it to silence Ben’s agreement. “No.  _ Fuck no _ ! None of us knew what would happen when I went back outside!” Oh he’s shouting. He doesn’t care, even as each word makes his ribs fucking pike pain _.  _ “Stop blaming yourselves for my fucking failure to protect myself! I won’t listen to that fucking bullshit! FUCK!” He slams his left fist down onto his left leg because he’s shaking with frustration and anger at himself, listening to Troy and Ben blame themselves and if he doesn’t let some of that anger out, he’s going to lose his shit. 

Of course, the motion and the yelling (probably more the yelling, if he’s being honest) makes fresh stabs of pain rip through his chest and steal his breath. 

“Sammy, calm down,” Ben says, standing back up and getting in front of Sammy so he’s blocking Sammy’s blurry view of the rest of the room. He takes Sammy’s left wrist, holding it gently but his message is clear: no more hitting himself. Fair. 

Sammy can’t get his chest to unlock. And it is only in part because of the physical pain. How could he not see this coming, Ben and Troy blaming themselves for him being grabbed? How could they think they were at fault? Why is he such a shitty friend that he didn’t think about how his friends would feel? He was so fucking focused on his pain that he didn’t think about them at all.

How could they not understand that his kidnapping and subsequent  _ torture _ was his own goddamn fault?!?

“Sammy, man. You need to take a breath. It’s been like thirty seconds,” Ben says in a low quiet rush. He looks upset. 

Sammy tries to pull in a small breath. It hurts. There’s a definite whine to the wheezing sound he makes. But the second breath is easier. For a few long moments all he does is breathe. Pretends he’s not crying. Not looking at Ben trying not to cry. 

After this minute or so of Sammy just trying to breathe through the spiked pain, Ben says: “This is not the time for this conversation.”

Sammy snorts. Like an idiot who forgot half his face is broken. He winces and shakes his head. “No. The time for this conversation was days ago. You two seriously think you’re why I was kidnapped and tor—hurt?”  _ ‘Good catch dumbass,’ _ he thinks to himself. 

“I mean. We were with you at Rose’s, ” Ben answers, looking away from Sammy. 

Troy comes closer. Puts a hand on Ben’s shaking shoulder. Shit. Ben is shaking. Another thing Sammy didn’t notice because he’s too focused on his pain, on himself. 

“One of us is sworn to protect, little buddy, and it ain’t you.” Troy’s voice is so full of self recrimination that Sammy snaps. 

“Goddamnit.  _ No _ !” Ow. Fuck. He winces but pushes through. This needs to be said. “I was weak and they saw it and used it against me and now I’m here listening to my two co best buds blame themselves for my weakness! I won’t have it. I fucked up. Not you two.” 

He expects Ben to argue. He expects Troy to argue too. What he doesn’t expect is for Ben to lean over and hug him around his neck, holding him as tightly as he can around his neck without aggravating any of Sammy’s many broken bones.

“I’m hugging you because I can’t hit you,” Ben tells him.

Troy reaches out and pats his head awkwardly. “Ditto.”

Sammy… lets himself be hugged. What else can he do? 

“Sammy,” Ben starts when he finally pulls away. “You’re not weak for being unable to fight off a goddamned murderbot! It’s not your fault they took you! That they hurt you... tortured you for information.” Hearing Ben say the “t word” makes Sammy sick to his stomach. But he pushes past that. This is about comforting Ben and Troy, after all. Like he should have been doing this whole time since he woke up, rather than focusing on how much his body hurt, or how scared he is like a little child. Ben and Troy are hurting and Sammy didn’t even see that. What kind of friend is he?

Sammy wants to argue. Instead he says: “Then you’re not at fault for any of it either. Lawman or not, Troy, you didn’t even know I was in trouble!”

There is silence. Ben and Troy are still so close, looking like they want to argue. But they don’t. 

Sammy says the one thing he can to get his friends to listen. To stop blaming themselves. “I knew you’d find me. Both of you.  _ All _ of you.” Because Sammy isn’t dumb enough to think Lily and Emily weren’t also ready to save him. Ernie may be dead but he’s lucky he died quickly - before Lily could get her hands on him. “I knew I just had to hold out.” He doesn’t say that he wasn’t completely sure if they’d find a dead body instead of how they did find him - alive but dying. But he knew he’d be found. 

“Well. I think your faith was misplaced,” Troy says, sounding genuinely guilty. “They had you for  _ hours _ Sammy. There were so many places to look and the bakery was low on the list.”

“SI owns a shit ton of properties, you needed time to sift through them all.”

“Hey!” Ben says suddenly smiling through the drying tears on his face. “That was smart by the way. Writing ES in the dirt. We knew it was them and not The Void.”

Sammy actually smiles back. “Oh. It stayed? I didn’t know if they’d erase it.”

Troy nods. “That was real clever Sammy. We knew who took ya. Just not where.”

Sammy doesn’t think the talk about blame is over, forever. But he pushes around it for now. “How  _ did _ you find me?”

“It took about a half hour or so for me to mobilize the department. We started checking SI properties, but there’s so many…” Troy trails off, sounding guilty, Sammy starters to protest, but Troy starts talking again. “The Dark -he contacts me when he hears the calls go out. It took almost an hour before he knew what was happening and we started checking the cameras...And then we had to come up with a plan, Sammy. On how to get you out safely.”

“And you did.”

“Barely. You nearly died, Sammy,” Ben says voice trembling, guilty and scared for Sammy. As if this wasn’t all Sammy’s fucking fault. “Your heart stopped during your surgery.”

Sammy stares at Ben. Ben with tears running down his face from his already red-rimmed eyes. He didn’t know that about his heart stopping during the surgery. That’s...Sammy doesn’t know how to process that. He can hardly breathe, thinking about it now. He died?

“I...I thought you knew that,” Ben says slowly, tears on his cheeks, sounding and looking so so guilty. He has nothing to feel guilty about, though Sammy doesn’t try to even comfort him because...it’s too many layers of (misplaced on Ben and Tory’s part) guilt and and self-blame to wade through and he’s having a bit of trouble focusing at the moment...because he just learned he fucking  _ died _ ! 

Sammy shakes his head. He thinks it should hurt to shake his head, but it doesn’t. He feels kinda numb.

He  _ died _ . As in wasn’t alive. As in, almost never saw his family again. Almost never saw Jack again. Ernie and Timbot killed him. Only for a minute or so (Sammy is terrified to ask how long) but...yeah. They did kill him, for a moment, there. He knew it had been close, that he nearly died, but not that he did die, temporarily. He remembers when Troy and Ben were knelt next to him, how hard it was to breathe and how scared he was, knowing that it wasn’t just pain causing the problem but something really broken inside of him. He knows the doctors have explained his injuries in serious voices, emphasizing how lucky he’s been to survive...But…he didn’t know he  _ died _ . 

“I...uh….” Sammy starts to say, but his voice cracks pathetically and he can’t figure out how to give voice to the feelings coursing through him, so he falls silent again. 

Ben is suddenly, but gently, hugging him again. Still so carefully, but a hug all the same. Troy’s hand back on his head. A moment later, there’s a hand on his leg and another on his good side, touching his shoulder. Sammy opens his eyes (he’s not sure when he closed them) and sees all of them surrounding him. His family.

“I lived,” he says, voice hoarse with the fear running through him at the thought of dying, however briefly. He’s trying so hard not to sound like the beaten and broken mess he is. 

“Yeah. You’re here now Sammy and that’s what counts,” Troy agrees. 

The others murmur their agreement, and slowly let him go, stepping back. Except Ben. Ben moves to he’s got his hand on Sammy’s head, fingers gently massaging Sammy’s scalp. Soothing. 

Troy clears his throat, he’s still standing close enough for Sammy to see him without having to turn his head any. “Which is why I’m here Sammy. To keep you alive and safe. Why we need to talk today…The judge denied me a warrant to go into SI on account of the way we obtained this video.”

_ Wait.  _ Sammy has to close his good eye. Take a deep breath. “Troy. I didn’t—“ Sammy chokes out.  _ God. Damn. IT. _ “It was recorded?” It being his alone time with Ernie and Timbot. 

There is a video of him getting beaten and interrogated by a mobster and his Robot Buddy.

A video of him tied up, screaming in pain. Begging. Sobbing like a weak little bitch. Like a weak little fa—

-The gentle pressure that Ben was putting on his scalp turns more firm, nails lightly scratching, enough of a change in sensation that it pulls Sammy’s focus. Jack in the Box Jesus he doesn’t deserve Ben Arnold in his life. 

Ben proves it is all intentional, of course it is, by saying: “Just. Breathe Sammy. Please. It’s okay.”

Sammy mm-hmms (making the sound makes the pain in his face flare). It’s not okay. Not by a long shot. Thus the sarcastic ‘mm-hmm.’ 

“It is Sammy!” Ben argues. “And if it’s not okay. We’re here. Breathe, buddy.” 

Sammy takes a breath. The second time he’s had to be reminded to do a basic task in this conversation. 

“That’s right. We are your family, Sammy. And we’re here.” Lily says. Emily chimes in her agreement too. 

“I don’t…” Sammy starts and trails off. Ben still is, well, the only word for it is scritching, Ben is still scritching his scalp. It’s a comfort he doesn’t deserve, but he’ll take. “Who’s watched it?”

Troy sighs. 

“Troy,  _ please _ .” Sammy would think he’s already low but the begging makes him feel even lower. 

“The whole video?” Troy asks.

Sammy makes a small noise of distress. Weak.

“I mean...Ben, The Dark, Katy and I...we all saw what was happening when he tapped into the feed until when we went in, Sammy.” Troy says it slowly, carefully. Like he knows telling Sammy that two people he considers family, and two others he doesn’t really like, watched him getting beaten - watched him break and beg - would be upsetting. 

And it is. It is upsetting. 

“Who’s watched all of it?” He asks, and he knows his voice tone is clear: he doesn’t want to know. But he needs to know.

A moment passes. Two. “Me, Katy, the judge...and a few higher ups in the state. People that needed to see that my shooting Ernie was justifiable.”

Okay. Two people that know him. That’s...that’s not terrible. He fucking hopes he doesn’t have to interact with Katy Lynch most days already. Now...yeah. 

“Sammy. There ain’t nothin’ on that tape that you should be ashamed of. I mean it,'' Troy says, with conviction in his voice. 

Sammy opens his eyes to look at Troy for a long moment before looking away. “I remember a lot of sobbing and begging. And screaming.” His voice is quiet, ashamed.

“Sammy! The man was hitting you with a hammer!” Troy shouts it at him, actually shouts, exasperation clear in his voice. “There ain’t nobody on this green earth that would handle that without makin’ some noise! You stood up to him, to them, Sammy. You knew what they wanted and you refused to give them the name they were lookin’ for, despite how bad you were hurtin’! That took a lot of strength and bravery, Sammy Stevens, and I won’t let you convince yourself you were anything other than strong and brave!”

Oh. Troy is yelling. But his eyes are wet with tears again, like he’s genuinely upset that Sammy would think he was anything other than strong and brave. 

“You broke Ernie’s nose,” Ben chimes in, sounding inordinately proud that Sammy managed a fucking headbutt. 

“Yeah ya did, bud! You fought back as well as you could, considerin’ they had you strung up like a cured ham while hurting you! And they were threatenin’ to go after everyone you love! But you held strong, Sammy.”

“Wasn’t a choice, really,” he argues. 

Troy snorts. “You may think that you had no choice, Sammy, but ya did, bud. You could’ve told them who you think The Dark is, but you didn’t. And it caused you a world of hurt. It nearly killed you—“

“—did for a minute—“ Ben says in that same shaky voice.

“—Did for a minute,” Troy amends, sounding just as pained to say it as Ben, as Sammy is to hear it. “But you survived. And they didn’t, Sammy.”

“You’re a tough son of a bitch, Stevens,” Lily says from where she and Emily are back, sitting on the other bed.

“Sammy if you mm-hmm  _ that,  _ I’m going to have to...poke you somewhere that doesn’t hurt.” Ben threatens, though he’s clearly bluffing, and reaching for a threat that won’t cause Sammy any pain. 

“Wow, Benny—“ Lily even pauses to let Ben correct her, which he does, of course - Sammy loves the normalcy. “—Sammy just had a robot and a fake godfather beat on him with a hammer. But your lame ass threat of poking him will surely be what he’s afraid of.”

“I’m not ‘mm-hmming’ anything,” Sammy interrupts before Lily can go on describing what he went through. For the record? ‘Mm-hmm’ hurts. Makes his face vibrate. 

“Good. Don’t. ‘Cause Lily is correct, Sammy,” Emily says, gentler than Sammy probably needs to be spoken to. But, Emily is that kind of person, that kind of friend. She’s, well, kind.

Sammy gives in and nods. “I still don’t—“ he starts but has to stop, regroup. His voice is shaky. “I’m not happy about people  _ seeing _ what happened.” There. That’s not too hard to admit. Who could blame him?

The silence that follows is concerning. Suspicious. Sammy turns his head to get a good look at Troy. Really looks at him.

And then realizes that nobody else will look at him. They’re all too busy looking at the floor or at the wall...Even Emily is refusing to look at him.  _ Fuck.  _

“Wha—“ his voice cracks again and makes him cough (fuck fuck  _ fuck that hurts _ ). 

Fuck his throat is still dry from being intubated, probablyy sore from all the screaming he did, continues to do when he wakes up and shrieks like a banshee. The pain shooting across his chest, down his side from his injured ribs steals his breath. Fuck he was just getting some relief thanks to the morphine Kirk gave him when he coughed. And he’s coughing again, throat irritated, and it’s turning into a coughing fit,  _ fuck _ .

He hears more than sees Ben refill his little water cup. His one good eye is blurry with tears from the coughing. Sammy kind of misses Ben’s hand in his hair. 

“Sammy,” Ben tells him, getting his attention so Sammy can reach up and take the plastic cup. 

He drinks the water desperately, hoping it helps smooth the irritation. His hand is shaking so hard he almost spills the contents. He squeezes the cup when it’s empty, inordinately pleased by the little action of crushing some filmsly plastic in his hand. 

When he can breathe again, past the pain, he reaches up to wipe at the tears gathered at the corner of his eyes. It hurts to reach across his body. But he’s glad Ben doesn’t do it for him. That would be...too much.

“Sor-“ he starts.

“—Stevens if you fucking apologize for coughing I think I might poke you somewhere where it would hurt,” Lily says, cutting him off. “Like your big fucking puffy eye. Just...Just consider that before you say anything more.” 

“This isn’t the right time for this talk,” Troy says again, before Sammy can retort.

Sammy turns his gaze from Lily to Troy. “We’re in it already, Troy,” he says, sounding as tired as he feels. “You know me. You can’t dangle things.”

“I thought you liked a man with a good dangle,” Lily says.

“Lily!” Emily admonishes, all she needs to say to get Lily to mumble an apology about ‘low hanging fruit.’

Jack in the Box Jesus Sammy loves them. All of them. He came so close to losing this. 

“Troy,” Sammy begs quietly. 

Troy clears his throat, looks at Ben. Out of the corner of his good eye, Sammy can see Ben nod, like he’s giving Troy permission. Interesting. Ben knows what Troy’s about to say.

“We were..well...I thought, and Ben agreed and—“

“—I don’t agree, I think this is a stupid idea!” Lily chimes in once again. 

Silence. Thanks Lily. Troy was rambling his way there, and now he looks stuck again. Like he’d rather do anything than say what he needs to say. 

“Troy thinks we should release the video on the internet to as many places as possible,” Ben says in a rush.

“What? Why?” Sammy’s voice is small, pathetic. Afraid of others seeing how pathetic he is. Why on earth would they want to do that?

“Because...There’s a few times, Sammy...uh, like before they strung you up—” Sammy flinches at the phrasing, though he doesn’t know how Troy could phrase it differently, and Troy pauses for a moment. “-Sorry,” he sounds so sincerely sorry that Sammy nods his head, waves his free hand as if to say ‘it’s fine go on,’ which thankfully Troy does. “And after the rope broke,” (after Ernie almost choked him out, Troy doesn't say which makes Sammy love him all the more) “That they spoke with Gunderson —on speaker phone through TimBot. You were unconscious both times,but both times he was abundantly clear that SI wanted information on The Dark, and that they, Ernie and TimBot, needed to get that information or there would be consequences for them.”

“Oh,” Sammy says, rather eloquently. He’s silent for a few long moments, processing. 

Ben adds in: “Sammy. He basically said it was okay if they killed you.” 

“Oh,” Sammy repeats. Like an idiot.

“This is a lot, Sammy,” Emily says. For a moment,Sammy thinks that is all she’s saying, just commiserating about how much he has to process, but then she starts talking again. “Take your time thinking about this. But...It might be a nail in the SI’s coffin,” Sammy winces at the phrasing, thinking of the coffin he should be in right now. Could be in, if Troy hadn’t acted when he did. Shit, he also thinks of the literal fucking nails that were shot via fucking nailgun into his damn leg. “Their Head of Security is on video explicitly telling their employees to torture,” Sammy shudders, though he suspects only Ben, who has been scritching at his scalp this whole time like Sammy is just a giant dog (it’s so fucking comforting, why is it so comforting?), notices - the pressure from Ben’s fingers increases. “—and possibly murder you. It could ruin their popularity and good will at least here in King Falls.”

Sammy listens to her. Emily thinks he should do this. Wow. If Emily thinks it, then...yeah. It’s the smart decision. She’s not like Ben (who probably would have it uploaded to YouTube already). She’s level headed. She wouldn’t say ‘do it’ without a lot of thought. 

“And it might keep y’all safe. They’re not dumb enough to try and come at you again, if the whole world knows you’re their victim,” Troy adds.

They’ve spoken about this, at length, without him. Their arguments are all lined up. Sammy, he looks at Troy. “You brought everyone here to see if we should do this?” Sammy asks.

Troy nods. “I think it’s ultimately your choice, but...this might have consequences for all of us, if we don’t take this chance, Sammy. The SI might come after someone else looking for—“

“—Don’t year  _ dare _ put our theoretical protection on his shoulders!” Lily all but shouts, her voice full of warning. “It’s  _ Sammy _ . You can’t fuckin’ tell him that or he’ll say yes without even thinking about what you’re asking him to do.” Sammy would be offended if ya know...he wasn’t ready to say ‘yes’ before Lily cut in (he’s reminded once more that she knows him so damn well - she’s seen the terrible parts of himself he’s hidden from everyone, even Ben, over the years). “You’re asking him to put a video of him being  _ fucking brutalized _ out there for the world to see in the hopes that the SI cult members turn against their, say it with me, _ fucking cult leaders _ ! It’s not gonna happen, Troy. You’re just gonna emb—“ Lily’s voice cracks. Sammy realizes she’s been crying since she cut Troy off. He hates that she’s across the room, that he can hardly fucking see her, let alone offer her any comfort. “It’s...it’s a lot to fucking ask, Troy. Would you want a video of someone torturing you released to the internet?”

“Lily,” Ben says softly. Because of course he’s picked up on the way Sammy’s reacting to the word torture. For the record? ‘Fucking brutalized’ wasn’t much easier to hear. 

Silence fills the room. It’s awful to hear, but at least Lily’s not crying and trying to hide it while she speaks. Though she keeps reaching up to wipe at her eyes.

After a few long moments, she says, quietly: “Sammy...there’s nothing — I should correct myself — I don’t — I’m sorry — rephrase,” Lily starts and stops. She’s like him. She can run her mouth through anything.The fact that she’s tripped up now is scary. When you’re Strength is struggling for words...it’s a bit difficult to hear. “There's nothing on that video that should embarrass you...but I know you. You  _ are _ embarrassed even if you’re wrong for being embarrassed.” 

“I knew what you meant,” Sammy assures her. He does. Lily and him...she knows what scares him. For years it meant she knew how to hurt him (and Sammy thought, for the longest time, that’s what family does - they hurt you where you’re most vulnerable, but then Benjamin Noah Arnold came into his life and showed him what family could really mean...and is in the process of showing Lily too) but now more often than hurting him, she’s trying to protect his soft bits too. Lily Wright is a scary person to fight against, but she’s a terrifying ally too. “Thank you,” he adds in, sincerely.

Silence descends on them again. Sammy takes a moment to close his eyes, to gather himself. There's so much at stake here...can he really be selfish and say no right now? Not really. But another consequence occurs to him.

“Won’t you lose your job if they find out you leaked this?” He asks, looking at Troy. 

“Oh. Well…The Dark already offered to record an intro saying this is his choice to share...he might lose his Deputy status. But the video was taken by him, it’s plausible that he’d have a copy…”

“Troy, you don’t sound convinced,” Sammy says after a moment. “You could lose your job over this.”

“Well. It’s better for this than for having a vigilante hide in the back of my cruiser.”

“Both situations were caused by the same man!” Ow. Fuck. Sammy sucks air through his nose, holds his left arm across his ribs protectively. 

“I don’t know if we’d be speakin’ right now, Sammy, if The Dark didn’t have those cameras planted,” Troy says, always so fair.

“Yeah. Becuase if he hadn’t fuckin’ broken into—“

“-It’s done, Sammy,” Ben says, cutting him off before he can go on a rant about The Dark. “Yeah, if Dw—The Dark, hadn’t broken in to SI, you wouldn’t be sitting here. But...he was really upset about it, Sammy. Like, he wanted to go in there and turn himself in to them in exchange for you.”

Troy clears his throat. “We were not going to tell Sa—

“—Wait, what?” Sammy interrupts, pretends Troy wasn’t about to say they were going to keep information from him. “He tried to….?” Sammy trails off, unable to say ‘trade his life for mine’ even though it would have been Dwayne’s life on the line had he done so. 

Ben nods. His hand has stilled against Sammy’s scalp, like he can’t think about this and continue the motion of his hand. Sammy understands. After a moment, Ben speaks. “It took a few minutes to realize what information they were trying to tor—ask you— about who...And Dw—Dark...Was halfway out the door, ready to go in there, before Troy had to physically restrain him. Troy had to basically cuff him. ‘Cause Troy was right, they would’ve just killed you both...He—The Dark — was kind of on the hysterical side.”

“You weren’t much better, Little Buddy,” Troy says, not unkindly. “But you weren’t trying to trade yourself in for Sammy.”

“Woulda if I thought it would end what was happening,” Ben says, no hesitation.

Which...fuck that locks up Sammy’s chest again, makes his heart thud painfully quick. The idea of Ben or even fucking Dwayne in his place...Sammy can’t breathe, thinking of Ben being on the receiving end of Ernie and TimBot’s attention, Ben laying there with his ribs smashed to shit and a nail gun against his skin, Ernie’s giant fucking hands hands around his neck, that sadistic fucking grin telling him how much Ernie was enjoying hurting him, making him scream—

“—Sammy.  _ Sammy _ . Look at me, Sammy, please,” Ben is saying, clearly not for the first time. His voice is trembling. 

Sammy blinks his suddenly wet eyes (eye, really), feels tears on his cheeks. He hears a whining little wheezing sound and realizes dimly that it’s him making that sound. He just...he can’t breathe around the idea of Ben being hurt by Ernie and RoboTim like Sammy was...Ben’s bones broken and Ben laying there gasping for air that won’t come, knowing something was seriously broken inside of him and that he was  _ dying _ , feeling like every breath was so damn hard that he wasn’t sure he’d be able to pull in another breath—

—Something cold and wet hits him in the face. Water? Sammy pulls a big, desperate breath in, feeling like he hasn't done so in a while. It  _ hurts _ of course it does, but his lips stop tingling, the room comes a little more into focus.

“Sammy? Back with us?” It’s, to his surprise, Lily asking the question. Sammy blinks water out of his eyes and tries to focus on the room around him. Sees she’s on his left side, he has to turn his head to see her, and she has the plastic water pitcher in her hands.

Emily isn’t in the room. That’s...where did she go? But Troy and Ben are both on the other side of the bed, his good side. 

“Okay. That was terrifying, Sammy,” Lily says, her voice shaking. “I’d rather you start screaming and ripping out your IV again than you go...away...like that. But don’t do either!” She sounds  _ scared, _ Sammy realizes. 

Oh. He’s scared too. He’s shaking. Hard enough that his ribs aching, shooting pains. He’s covered in fresh sweat, too. And..fuck! Ben and Troy are both pale too, Ben’s once again got tears on his face, in his eyes…

“Ben,” Sammy croaks out. He doesn’t know what else to say. How do you say how terrified you are by the very idea of your best fucking friend trading his life for yours? 

Ben gives him a warm, wet at the edges kinda smile. “I know, Sammy.”

Whatever else they are going to say is cut off by the door to the room opening, and Kirk coming in with Emily. Oh. Fuck. How long was he out of it if Emily was able to leave and go get Kirk.

Going by the fact that Lily’s got tear tracks on her face...maybe a bit. 

“Hey, Sammy,” Kirk says quietly. His eyes are red-rimmed. But he pushes on, all forced but not false cheer. “You’re back with us?”

Sammy gives a small nod. 

“Sounds like that was a flashback, maybe?” Sammy’s unsure so he shrugs his left shoulder. “Come on, Big Guy, talk to me. Give me an idea how you’re feeling. Your heart rate is still skyrocketing. Do you think you had a flashback?”

Big Guy? Oh. Right. Kirk is only an inch or two taller than Ben. Sammy gets where that’s coming from. Still a bit weird...but...not what he should be thinking about right now. 

And...Sammy slowly realizes Kirk is expecting him to respond. “Maybe?” He answers, his voice hoarse.

“Let’s go with the idea that it was. Kinda scary, I imagine...Right now you look so tense you’re vibrating, Sammy,” Kirk observes, which...isn’t wrong. Sammy nods his head. “For a radio guy, you sure are the strong silent type, huh? I’m trying to get you to say words here.”

Sammy blinks at him, says: “I’m okay.”

Kirk actually laughs. “You do realize I’m looking at a heart monitor that’s telling me you’re  _ not _ okay, right? It’s spiked a couple of times in the last...oh, hour or so.”

Oh. Kirk is giving Troy the stink eye a bit. 

“I’m—“

“I will dump water on you again,” Lily warns.

Kirk laughs again, but actually slides in between Lily and him. Probably to get Sammy to focus on him, but also maybe a bit protective, Sammy thinks. 

“You okay?” Sammy asks, because Kirk is so pale, his eyes are so upset.

Kirk snorts. “Dude. You’re actively having a panic attack but you’re asking me how I am?”

“Welcome to my world,” Ben drawls from his place on Sammy’s right side. 

Ben’s hand is back in his hair. Scritching. Sammy closes his eyes. “‘S not a—“

“Water!” Lily warns.

“Maybe a panic attack,” Sammy admits.

Kirk’s eyes are so serious, so concerned. “Okay. You’ve had a few of those since you woke up, Sammy. Your doctor says you have a prescription for Klonopin so you’ve taken it before?” It is a statement disguised as a question. Kirk doesn’t say the obvious: Sammy is such a fucking wreck of a human that he needed the meds before this all happened. That he’s so damn weak he can’t even control his brain from freaking out on a good day, so of course he’s not going to win the fight now. 

Sammy can’t get away from Kirk’s scrutiny. From Lily and Emily and Troy all in the room too. Ben’s...Ben is the only one he’s ever really spoken with about his need for the fucking Klonopin wafers. Everyone else probably knows about it. Well. Maybe not Troy. Lily lives with him and Emily practically does too. Troy probably doesn’t even know he’s seen Sammy mid panic attack many fucking times because Sammy learned very early on in his life to panic silently in public. 

“There’s nothing wrong with needing a rescue med, Sammy,” Kirk says, probably picking up on Sammy’s thoughts. He doesn’t believe in psychics but Kirk is apparently very empathetic. “I get panic attacks myself. I think you kinda saw me having one before.” Sammy opens his mouth to apologize but Kirk laughs, not unkindly. “No, don’t apologize, that’s not my point.” Kirk looks at Ben. “Wow… he really is like this, huh?” He asks Ben, but then turns back to Sammy before Ben can answer or Sammy can try and defend himself. “My point is, there’s no shame in needing relief. Especially if you’re hyperventilating with broken ribs.”

“Not—“

“Again, there’s a monitor telling me otherwise, Sammy, so don’t finish the sentence. I believe Lily here is going to get a pitcher of water if you do.”

That startles a laugh out of Sammy. Kirk’s phone beeps in his pocket and he pulls it out to check, smiles. “Cool. That was your doc okaying a Klonopin. I’m gonna go get one and I’ll be right back with it. If you’ll take it. Again, I think your ribs are kind of hating how quick your breathing, how tense you are. It’s hard to heal if you’re keyed up to like, eleven.”

If he doesn’t heal...he’ll be a burden longer. He can’t do that to everyone. He  _ can’t _ . 

Sammy nods. Kirk smiles. Sammy thinks Dwayne Libbydale is one of the biggest fucking idiots in King Falls, but at least he’s smart enough to get together with a man that smiles like  _ that. _ “Awesome! I’ll be right back.”

Kirk leaves the room. Sammy closes his good eye, tires so hard to breathe around the tightness in his chest. But every rapid breath feels like it’s going nowhere. It’s too much like laying on the floor of that fucking bakery. Looking up at Ben and knowing, fucking  _ knowing _ , that he was dying. 

Over the sound of his (pathetic) wheezing too quick breaths, Lily says: “I told you this was too soon to talk about all this.” She sounds angry and protective. 

Sammy shakes his head. “No. I needed to know what’s going on. Can I think about it?”

“Of course, Sammy,” Ben assures him. “We won’t share it until you give the okay.”

“I need to watch it first,” Sammy says it like a request. It’s not.

Silence. He opens his eyes to see everyone looking at each other, unsure, above his head. 

“I’m not sure—“ Ben starts, but Sammy cuts him off.

“—No. If I’m gonna be out there, getting tor—“ he has to stop, his voice just dies (like he did,  _ fuck _ !) mid word. “I need to see what everyone else is going to see.”

Silence for a moment or two. Then, Ben says: “Okay, Sammy. But tomorrow, yeah? Today has been hard enough.”

Sammy sighs. Nods. Tomorrow. It can wait for him to take a night to think this over, right? 

As it turns out, no. It is a terrible decision to wait and Ben’s blood will be on his hands for waiting. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember the warnings in first chapter?...this is when they apply.

Sammy wakes up almost too late to save himself.

He comes to with a painful flinch, but for once he’s not waking violently from a nightmare. He flinches awake because someone is holding the IV in his left arm steady, presumably to insert a needle. 

He’s been poked and prodded since waking up (and probably even more when he was unconscious), but the hospital staff always wake him before giving him medication. 

That’s his first clue that something is wrong. 

The second is that he feels the drug going in but they didn’t flush the line first - he thinks he’s developing a Pavlovian response to tasting saline knowing that relief from the pain will follow - they just push the med in. 

All this he realizes on an almost subconscious level. He knows something is wrong. But maybe not why. Not yet. Later he’ll put it all together. 

Right now, Sammy struggles to full wakefulness, something animalistic in him screaming: danger! The room is dim. It’s late, but not late enough - the light from the windows hasn’t changed much since he last received a dose of the pain meds - another clue something is wrong. 

And yeah, the room is dim, but not so dim he can’t see the badge clipped to the man's chest. Kirk's badge. But it’s not Kirk. This man is tall, bald.

Sammy realizes something is very, very wrong. He tries to pull his arm away, but the man changes his grip and holds his arm steady. Painfully. Even in the throes of his worst panic attacks, the hospital staff haven’t gripped him so hard. 

“Ben!” Sammy screams, knowing even half awake and confused that Ben will come. 

Where’s Ben? Ben is here tonight. Refused to leave Sammy’s side after the hard talk they all had earlier, after Sammy scared him with his freak outs.

Then Sammy remembers: Katie Lynch is outside. 

“Ka-“ Sammy starts to call, but he’s cut off by a savage punch to his already broken nose.

He tries to shout again and his good eye is the next target. Two hard punches that make his whole face explode in pain and everything go a bit fuzzy.

The guy lets go of his arm and starts towards the bathroom. Later, Sammy will realize it’s because the bathroom is shared between this room and the next, and there’s no deputy in front of that room’s door, but right now he doesn’t have time to think about why his attacker is there, because suddenly the door is wrenched open, and Ben is in the bathroom doorway, inches from his attacker. 

Everyone freezes for a minute, Ben breathing hard and looking confused, his jeans unbuttoned, like he didn’t take the time to do them up once he heard Sammy was in trouble. 

Then everything happens at once. Sammy watches it all. dazed, through a veil of involuntary tears from the pain in his face. There’s a flash of silver in the guy’s hand and Ben is screaming in pain and there’s a pounding on the hospital room door. The door rattles like it’s locked. The bastard locked the door behind him as he came in. 

Sammy can’t breathe right and he can hardly see, but he has to get to Ben. There’s a rail in the way but he doesn’t have time to fight it one handed. He scoots to the foot of the bed and slides off in between where the railing ends and the footboard. All the movement should hurt but it doesn’t - Ben is in danger. 

Ben and the man are struggling. Ben’s got two hands against the guy’s one arm that’s holding a bloody scalpel and Sammy means to go help or do something but his body feels so heavy and not his to command as he staggers towards them. He knows he can’t fight. He’s okay with just being a distraction. 

The man pulls back suddenly from Ben. Ben hits his knees, cries out in pain, folding forward over the wound in his gut.

Sammy’s so focused on Ben he almost doesn’t understand that the man has turned to face him. But at the last moment, he sees the flash of the scalpel in the man's hand and he stumbles back, trips on legs that don’t want to hold him up. 

He hits the floor, landing on his ass Hard, so hard that despite his previous numbness,he whites out from the pain. 

He comes back to himself laying on his back with the man standing over him. Someone is yelling. Behind him, Ben is using the doorway to lean on as he tries to pull himself to his feet. Sammy knows Ben is going to try and save him. That might be bad, Sammy doesn’t think he can save himself. 

The man lurches forward toward Sammy, scalpel in his hand pointed downward, ready to stab him. The man’s mouth moves. Over the terror making his blood thud painfully loud in his ears, Sammy hears what he says:

“Be well, Sammy Stevens...-.”

Sammy looks past him to Ben, who is pushing off the door jamb, one hand pressed tight against the wound in his gut. Sammy doesn’t think Ben will make it. 

Sammy closes his eyes and waits to die. 

He doesn’t. 

There is a loud bang that makes Sammy open his eyes. The man falls sideways away from Sammy. Someone is still yelling but Sammy can’t hear it now - his ears are ringing. 

Sammy sits up and everything is swimming - he thinks something is really wrong with him and something else is really, really wrong but he doesn’t know what until his eyes land on Ben. Bens slid back down the door jamb. He locks eyes with Sammy for a second, relief clear in his eyes. 

And then he’s tipping back. 

Sammy sees Ben land flat on his back, hand over his lower left side. 

Sees Ben with blood welling up between his fingers. 

Sammy doubts he can stand. He doesn’t even try. He starts to crawl to Ben. He only has the one arm to balance on but he doesn’t care. Not until that arm is held up by the weight of him trying to drag an entire toppled IV pole with him. Sammy curses and tears the tape off the back of his hand with his teeth. Gets the IV out of the back of his hand the same way. 

Then he’s back to crawling to Ben. Doesn’t feel the pain he thinks he should be feeling, considering walking hurt so much earlier in the day. Crawling like this should hurt, but nothing hurts except the pain in his chest at seeing Ben’s blood begin to pool on the floor around him.

Ben's eyes are so big, so scared. He’s panting, breathing hard. There are tears on Ben’s face. His mouth moves, Sammy can’t hear what he’s saying over the ringing in his ears, but he knows what his best friend, his brother, is saying all the same because he’s seen and heard Ben say his name a few hundred times a day. 

Sammy sobs brokenly, a desperate release of the terror burning up inside his chest, and realizes he has to do something. His brain and body seem so disconnected. Moving is hard. Thinking harder. But he manages to get enough of his gown in front of himself that he can use the extra fabric to replace Ben's hands. He pushes down and it makes Ben cry out but Sammy knows he has to. 

Hates that the last thing he may ever do to Ben Arnold is cause him pain (later, later, Sammy will have time to think: of course he’d be the one to hurt Ben, all he does is hurt the ones he loves, but now he can’t think that because his brain is too syrupy thick and disconnected, trying to float away). 

He thinks someone is talking, yelling maybe, if he can hear them at all over the ringing, but Sammy doesn’t understand what they’re saying. He doesn’t care either. All his world is Ben in front of him. He presses down with both hands, cast on his right arm be damned - he just has to hold that arm at an awkward angle. He knows he has to stop the bleeding. Ben cries out when he presses down. 

“Sammy,” Ben breaths out again. Sammy can hear him, the ringing tapering enough. Enough that he can hear the fear in Ben’s voice, under the pain. 

Sammy can’t say anything back, for a minute. The fabric under his hand is soaking through. “‘s ‘kay,” he slurs at Ben, trying to sound certain but his tongue is so heavy in his mouth - it won’t move right. “Ya gonna—“

A hand touches his left shoulder, another wraps around his right bicep. Sammy finds enough air (huh, he's having so much trouble breathing, he discovers) to scream. He twists on his knees - which should be so damn painful but isn’t. Ben is hurt and someone is trying to hurt Ben more, take him from Ben. Sammy can’t allow that. So he punches with his left hand as he pivots.

His fist connects with somebody’s gut, just above their gun belt. Nobody is hurting Ben as long as he can keep himself between them and Ben, as long as he has any breath left in him (why is it so fucking hard to breathe?), he’s not letting them! 

The person he hit keeps a hold of his arm as they fall backwards and yank Sammy back with them. Sammy screams again, viciously, all pure animalistic rage, desperate to keep helping Ben. He is not letting anyone put their hands on Ben. He won’t. 

He lands on top of the person’s legs. He thinks what flares up through his body is pain, but maybe not ‘cause again it doesn’t hurt as much as it’s a sensation. It doesn’t matter. He’s ready to twist and fight and hit and bite and whatever else to keep anyone from getting at Ben. 

But then he registers the color of the pants the person he’s on is wearing. realizes he’s laying on top of legs that are wearing the same uniform pants that Sammy’s seen Troy wear a thousand times. Dark blue with a black stripe down the leg. The pants mean safe, protected, and seeing them makes all the fight drain out of Sammy. 

“Sammy, Sammy, it’s okay, it’s me, Katie. You need to let the doctors help Ben,” Katie fucking Lynch is saying.

As she says the last part the hospital staff stream around them on the floor and it seems like there’s half a dozen people trying to get into the small bathroom. Hospital staff. There for Ben. 

Sammy stills, hardly breathing as he watches them carefully, makes sure they’re not hurting Ben. Ben’s still. Still in a way that Benjamin Noah Arnold never is. He’s unconscious. 

Sammy’s throat clenches shut. 

He feels his chest vibrate with a sob, but it’s strangled by his closed up throat. 

Someone familiar looking floats into his line of sight - he’s not sitting on Katie’s legs anymore, she’s up. He’s laying on his good side, propped up on his arm. 

Sammy lets the familiar face pull him to his feet. He can’t really stand, his legs feel like his bones have been scooped out and replaced with wet cement. He can’t really understand what’s being said. He stares at Ben’s feet, all he can see through the throng of medical personnel, as they try to help him. The person helping Sammy stay upright steers him backwards and sit him on the bed. 

Sammy repays the favor by leaning forward and violently vomiting on their feet - his rubber soled socks and the person’s shiny shoes. He keeps going forward, but strong hands push against his shoulders, keep him from falling off the bed. Onto his feet. 

Then someone is taking his face in their hands when he tries to lean to the side, to see past them to Ben. But the person won’t let him.

Kirk. It’s Kirk in front of him. Kirk saying words Sammy can’t understand with a worried face. Kirk with Sammy’s vomit on his shoes and a smear of blood on the sleeve of his scrubs where Sammy’s clutching him. 

“Ben?” Sammy’s asks. Why is it so hard to talk? He feels like he can’t get his chest to take in enough air, can’t get his mouth to move right either. His one open eye’s lid is so heavy. Sammy’s head dips down, chin towards his chest. 

Kirk rights his head. Sammy thinks, dizzsedly, that he now knows how a bobble head feels, his head too heavy for his neck, and giggles. 

He’s the only one giggling. Kirk is frowning. Talking. Sammy struggles to keep his head up and frown back. Tries to focus on what Kirk is saying. It might be about Ben.

“... give you?” Kirk is asking. Sammy’s ears are buzzing. “Sammy, focus. What happened? Did he give you someth-“

“-Kirk!” 

Kirk turns to look behind himself. Sammy looks too. 

Katie is kneeling on the ground next to the bastard who stabbed Ben. She’s holding up something. 

Kirk starts toward her, but at the moment he lets go of Sammy, all of Sammy’s bones and muscles liquify and turn to silly putty. And Sammy starts to slide off the bed while also falling forward. 

Kirk manages to keep Sammy from melting onto the floor. Why is he melting? Kirk pushes his liquid muscles and bones back into a sitting position.

Katie stands and walks over to them in slow motion too. Why is everything going so slow? Why does it feel like he can’t open his mouth to talk, to move any part of himself?

Katie hands the thing to Kirk. Kirk manages to keep Sammy solid with just one hand. 

Kirk is holding a syringe. His mouth is moving. 

Sammy shakes his head. “Don’t need that I don’t hurt,” he tries to say but his mouth isn’t moving right. 

“Fuck,” Kirk says. Sammy frowns. Kirk looks very upset. 

“Ben-“ Sammy starts. He tries to lean around Kirk to see if Ben is still in the room but he nearly falls out of the bed. 

Kirk catches him. Kirk is saying something urgent over his shoulder.

Then Kirk is looking at him again. “Sammy,” he says, “I need you to focus.”

And Kirk is guiding Sammy to lay back on the bed. Sammy goes with it. Laying down is a lot easier than sitting up. Even though the bed feels like it’s undulating ever so slightly. 

Sammy closes his eyes. He’s so tired. He just wants to close his eyes for a minute. Maybe stop trying to force his chest to rise, too. It’s taking so much work. He didn’t realize how much until now, when he stops forcing it.

There is a sudden pain in the center of his chest, someone digging into his sternum. He whines as he opens his eyes. Only one eye opens. That’s weird. 

The pain pressing on his chest stops. There is a very worried looking woman leaning over him. She says his name. He can’t talk, it’s too much work, but he grunts to show he hears her. She smiles. 

There is a feeling of tipping backwards and he’s suddenly laying flat. The motion is too much. He turns his head and vomits. 

He closes his eyes. Stops forcing his chest to rise. It’s so hard. 

Another flare of pain. Sammy opens his eyes. His head feels so heavy. All of him is so heavy. He can’t see so good. 

She snaps her fingers in front of his blurry but open eye. Calls his name. She’s got something in her hand.

“Listen to me, Sammy,” she says. And Sammy tries to listen. There is something terribly wrong he just doesn’t know what. Maybe she could...

Pain, the center of his chest, someone pressing their knuckles hard into his sternum. He closed his eyes again, oops. He opens them. Only one eye opens. He can hardly see out of the eye that does open. 

Something is put up one of his nostrils. Sammy tries to flinch back away from this new discomfort but someone is holding his head still. 

There’s a weird feeling. Something being sprayed up his nose. They do the same to the other nostril. 

Sammy opens his good eye - he didn’t know he closed his eyes again. Why is his vision so blurry? Why does everything hurt? 

He’s flat on his back on the bed. A worried looking woman and Kirk standing over him.

The woman smiles gently. Sammy thinks that something is seriously wrong. Doctors don’t smile like that if everything is okay.

“That was Narcan,” the woman explains. “Someone gave you too much morphine, Sammy. You were overdosing.”

Sammy doesn’t understand, really. His body still feels so very disconnected from his brain, he’s too busy being disconnected and exhausted to nod, so he just hums to show he kind of understands what she’s saying. 

“You’re safe now,” Kirk assures him.

Everything hurts. He feels like he’s been dragged across broken glass. Or his bones were glass and they’ve all been shattered...or the broken glass was his shattered bones, maybe. 

“What…?” He starts to ask but then there’s movement to his side and he has to turn his whole head - ew his pillow is wet - to see.

There’s a man laying unnaturally still on the floor. Katie Lynch right next to him, watching Sammy. Her hands are shaking, Sammy realizes. He thinks she might be crying. It’s hard to see that far. 

And then Sammy sees the blood in the threshold of the bathroom. Sees the blood and remembers: it’s Ben’s blood. 

“Ben!” He shouts and sits up.

Well. He gets a third of the way towards sitting up when the pain that lances through his entire right side drops him back down. 

Kirk puts a hand on his shoulder. Part comfort, part to hold him down, Sammy thinks. Sammy starts to try and get himself up again, but Kirk exerts a little more pressure and holds him down easily. “Sammy, they took Ben down to trauma. He’s going to be okay I promise, but you...” Kirk falters for a minute. Then says: “You need to focus on us, okay?” 

Sammy is crying. He doesn’t know when that started. “Ben,” he says again. Ben is hurt. Bad. And Sammy has to go to see him, make sure he’s okay. 

“I promise, Sammy, he’s going to be okay. But you’re still in danger here. I need you to focus and listen to us.” Kirk sounds so serious. Like Sammy really is in danger.

Sammy’s not hurt or anything. He’s fine. Ben was stabbed. 

Sammy looks away from the blood to look at the doctor, at Kirk. 

The doctor smiles. “Good, Sammy. I promise we’ll keep you updated on Ben.”

Updated. Fuck. Fuck. FUCK! He tries to sit up again. Kirk holds his shoulder down, shakes his head. 

Sammy tries to explain: “Gotta call Emily. Betty.” Each word is a struggle to say and not just because it hurts so damn much to talk. His chest is so damn heavy. His tongue is not listening to what his brain is telling it to do. 

“I’ve called Troy, already Sammy,” Katie says, coming over to stand next to his bed, leaning into his limited line of sight. Yeah, she’s crying. Why? How bad off is Ben? “Troy’s going to the house right now,” she continues. “And then I’m sure Ms. Emily can tell Ms. Arnold.”

Sammy wants to argue that no, this should come from him. But he’s not sure he can get all those words out.

So he does the only thing he can and whispers a broken: “‘kay.” 

The doc starts talking again explaining to him what’s going on with his body. Sammy struggles to listen.

All he can think is: Ben Ben Ben.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> that was fun! <3 thanks for reading! your comments sustain me, loves, even if i haven't replied yet (i get reply shy...i swear that's a thing!)


	3. Chapter 3

The door to his room opens. Sammy can’t easily see who it is because the nurse that replaced Kirk, Kirk who only went home about half an hour ago, five hours after his shift ended (Sammy asked when he realized Kirk was here at the hospital a rather long time) because he said he wouldn’t leave until he was sure Sammy was out of the woods and not panicking too hard alone (okay, sammy suspects that part - Kirk didn’t say as much, but Sammy was alone because when Lily tried to come to his room, Sammy sent her away to go be with Emily and Betty - they needed her more. Lily didn’t listen to him until he screamed at her to go, which hurt and made his heart monitor freak out for a minute and even then she was pissed, but she went) has basically tied an ice pack over what was his good eye before it was punched a few times. Tied it there because even holding it in place with his good hand stretched up and across his body hurts.

Sammy can’t fucking see with the ice pack there and it’s terrifying. But if his ‘good’ eye also swells closed, it will be longer before he can see again. As it is, his ‘good’ eye is now swollen to the point where he’s down to like twenty-five percent of his vision...Just half of one eye. So he has to keep the ice on, despite the sheer terror that shoots through him thinking about how much of a sitting duck he is right now. 

He reaches up to slide the ice pack off - it’s only tucked into an ace bandage that's wrapped around his head as the nurse had to prove to him that it could be easily and quickly removed before he let her put it on - He’s a pain in the ass like that. Hospital staff sat with him all night to make sure he wasn’t going to fucking die, and he still had the gall to panic stupidly over a little darkness when he should be closing his eye and going to sleep. 

Pain flares across his chest, down his ribs from the movement. Fuck he hurts. He bites his lip hard against the pathetic whimper of a sound that wants to come out. Tastes blood -not for the first time since the Narcan flushed the last of the morphine out of his system a few hours ago (or did it just feel like hours? he’s so scared about Ben, and everything hurts so much that each second feels like an hour). Everything fucking hurts. Breathing hurts. Thinking hurts.

Moving, moving definitely hurts.

He just...he can’t forget how hard it was to draw in a breath. To keep his eyes open. The panicked ‘something is wrong and I am dying’ feeling that raced through his syrupy confused thoughts. How his whole body felt like it wasn’t his to control.

So no morphine for him. No opiates at all. 

Just a shit ton of Tylenol. He’s maxed out, they can’t give him anymore, they said. 

Then, breathing doesn’t hurt because he stops breathing when he sees who is at the door. Betty Arnold.

Betty’s got tear tracks on her face. He’s never looked so distraught, destroyed before. And Sammy had been at her house almost daily when Ben disappeared after Emily was abducted. 

“Oh, Sammy,” she says, standing in the doorway, and she starts to cry.

Sammy knew it, before she even spoke. She is here and Ben is in surgery (that’s what they told him the last time anyone updated him). Betty is here. Not with Ben. Not waiting for Ben in recovery. Like she would be, if Ben made it through the surgery.

Ben is dead. Sammy is so sure of it. She wouldn’t be here, otherwise. 

That’s why Sammy can’t breathe.

He doesn’t want to breathe anyway. He doesn’t think he’ll ever want to breathe again. 

He just stares at Betty across his (new, not a crime scene) hospital room, chest locked between inhale and exhale, his fist closed around the ice pack in his hand. 

Ben is dead. 

Sammy’s mouth tastes like blood. 

Ben's blood is still on his cast - they tried to get as much off as they could, said they'd change the cast when Sammy was ‘feeling better’ but he’s not sure he’ll ever feel anything again let alone better. Benjamin Arnold is dead. There is no better for Sammy. 

He knew he’d always fucking get Ben killed. He destroys everything beautiful in his life, given enough time. 

Later, even when he thinks about this, the moment will stretch on in his memory. Betty in the doorway. Him tasting pennies and knowing Ben’s blood is on his hands.

But it doesn’t last long, the moment, not in reality. His thoughts just cycle that quickly. Not long at all. A few dozen painful heartbeats at the longest. 

It doesn’t last long because Sammy breaks, shatters. He lets out a sob. Just one moment of broken sound before his throat seizes up and closes again. 

And he thinks: what he feels emanating from his broken bones can no longer be called pain because what he feels in his chest, his gut, knowing Ben Arnold is no longer in the world is so painful that seven broken ribs and a smashed up face just doesn’t compare, can never be considered pain again.

His sob breaks the spell that had Betty frozen in the doorway. She’s suddenly rushing forward, dropping her coat and purse on the floor as she goes. 

Her hands take his uncasted hand. The one that Kirk had scrubbed clean over a basin for him because he was too weak to stand at the bathroom sink. She hugs his arm to his chest, ice pack still crushed in his grip, like she knows that’s the only part of him safe to touch without causing pain, except he doesn’t feel his body’s pain anymore. 

Sammy doesn’t turn his head to see her. He keeps looking straight ahead. He can’t look at her. He killed her son. Her only child. Sealed Ben's fate when he called for him first before he shouted for Katie’s help. 

“Sammy, honey…?” She trails off, sounding lost. How did she think he’d handle this?

Sammy still can’t breathe. His lips are tingling, lungs burning. 

That’s when everything bursts into sound and motion he can hardly follow. 

An alarm starts blaring. 

The room floods with people but he can’t really see how many or who because he’s down to a quarter of his vision. And maybe his severely limited vision is getting spotty. 

Oh definitely spotty. 

Betty lets go of his arm. Steps back and Sammy flails weakly after her. He doesn't deserve her comfort but she needs some and then there’s someone touching him, his face. 

Sammy cries out and tries to get away. He can’t quite focus to see who is touching him but it’s not Betty because she’s all he can see, standing off to the side out of his reach, looking paler than she was when she came in. Goddamnit why is he making this so much harder on her? 

“Sammy. Sammy, look at me now. Come on look at me,” a kind of familiar voice says. 

Oh. Sammy blinks slowly and sees it’s the doctor he was talking to about not wanting any opiate pain meds again. About a hour ago. The doctor gives him a smile. 

“Good,” the doctor says, smiling tightly. “Now. Breathe in.”

Sammy does as he’s told. It feels like he’s breathing in through a very narrow straw made of sandpaper. Shit, it sounds like he’s breathing in through a very narrow straw made of sandpaper. Fuck his lungs burn. He can’t breathe.

“Okay, now out,” she tells him. 

Sammy means to. But he can’t breathe out slowly, instead he gaps in desperalty again. And again, rapid hitching little inhales that aren’t giving him any air he doesn’t have any air he’s--it’s like before he’s not breathing and--

“---Shh...it’s okay, you’re okay,” the doctor says. “Try to just breathe in once and out once.” She says it so calmly over the sound of his rapid wheezing.

The doctor repeats her commands for him to breathe in and out half a dozen times before Sammy can even hold his breath in long enough to let it out when she tells him. Only when the alarm stops going off does he realize it was probably announcing he wasn’t breathing right. 

She keeps him following her slow rhythm for a dozen more times before she stops having to tell him to inhale or exhale. 

And that’s when he tries to look around and sees Betty again. 

And his chest locks again. 

“Look at me. Just me, Sammy,” she says. “Inhale.”

Sammy breaths as she tells him. 

“Alright. Good job. What’s going on?”

Sammy needs a moment to even process she’s asking him what’s going on with him. Why is he having trouble breathing? 

He needs another moment to speak. To put words to the pain in his chest, his gut. “Ben,” his voice is hardly there at all. 

“Ben’s in--” the doctor starts but Sammy can’t hear ‘the morgue,’ he can’t.

“--He’s dead,” he says, cutting her off because she can say it. Sammy knows Ben is dead, but he can’t fucking hear about him being in the morgue. He can’t. He’ll shatter (again) if he hears that, he knows it.

Sammy hears a sob and after a moment realizes he made the sound. He bites his lip hard to keep a second sob in. It doesn’t work and he’s suddenly choking on his tears, coughing and sobbing and his body is screaming at him in pain but none of it matters because Ben is dead.

Over the sound of Sammy’s pathetic sobs, the sound of the doctor trying to get him to breathe again, Lily yells: “What the fuck Stevens?”

Sammy winces at her anger and turns his head to the right. Lily and Emily are standing there, staring at him like he’s gone insane, like Ben’s death shouldn't be destroying him like this. Sammy didn’t even notice them come into the room. 

“Sammy, honey, no. Ben isn’t dead,” Emily says her voice cracking on the word ‘dead’ but she says it, says it so gently so kindly. 

Sammy doesn’t understand. He can’t let himself hope yet. “But...Betty’s here. Not with-“

“Sammy you dumbass — Jesus — she’s here because they’re going to bring Ben in here after he’s out of recovery,” Lily is practically still yelling, but she looks so scared, he’s not even mad she’s yelling at him. “She can’t sit with him in recovery!”

Sammy rolls his head to look at Betty. Betty’s got tears on her face, in her voice when she says: “They told us to head up here.”

“But...you...you were upset when you came in...” Sammy argues, trailing off. He’s slowly recognizing that it’s relief he’s feeling soaking out into his limbs from his still pounding - fuck it’s beating fast - heart. 

“Baby...” Betty says and fresh tears well up in her eyes and she swallows hard against whatever she is going to say next.

“Jesus Christ, Sammy! Have you looked in a mirror, recently!? You look like death chewed you up and spit you out. You’re as white as the blanket except where you’re swollen and purple! You’re sweating through your gown. For fuck’s sake, Sammy, of course she’s going to cry when she sees you, dumba—”

“- okay, Lily. Enough,” Emily says quietly, stopping the Lily Wright diatribe before it can truly begin.

Sammy frowns, knows Lily enough to know she’s only angry and calling him a dumbass because he must have scared her. 

“He’s really alive?” Sammy asks, just to be certain, just to hear it again. 

Betty reaches out, gently, so fucking gently, cups his unbruised cheek, runs her thumb along the tears still leaking out of his eyes.

“Really, baby, I promise, Benny’s okay,” Betty swears. Her voice is shaky, but she’s not lying. “He’s out of surgery and should be brought up here pretty soon.”

Something in Sammy unclenches, and he breathes out in a sigh, eyes closing. Ben is okay. The relief makes him dizzy.

The doctor clears her throat. Sammy almost forgot she’s there. He wearily opens his one eye as much as he can, focusing on her.

“Sammy, how’s your pain level? You’re sweating and shaking.”

“I’m fin—“

“—I’m asking on a scale of one to ten, not how you think you feel. Give me a number.”

“Oh, I like her,” Lily mumbles to Emily. Probably intentionally loud enough for Sammy to hear.

“I’m-“

“Mr. Stevens,” the doctor starts harshly but softens almost immediately because the abrupt change makes Sammy flinch. “Sammy,” she corrects. “I understand why you’re reluctant to receive a medication that-“

“—nearly fucking killed me!? Yeah. Not keen doc!” Sammy ignores the fact that his voice is full of tension and he really is sweating and shaking probably gives him away. Fuck, talking hurts.

“I understand,” the doc says as Lily calls him a stubborn son of a bitch. “But if you’re in so much pain you can hardly breathe-'' Sammy opens his mouth to argue that was a panic attack he’s fine again but she keeps taking before he can so much as make a sound “-I’ve been watching your stats, Sammy. You aren’t breathing nearly as much as you need to be if you don’t want to develop some really terrible complications. You need pain relief to do that. But I can’t force your hand.”

“No you can’t,” he says, frustrated -this is so fucking embarrassing. A couple Tylenol, shit the max dose of Tylenol at that, should be fine. 

“But I can give you my opinion. And that’s my opinion. You need more than T3.”

“Sammy, Jesus Christ,” Lily says again. 

Sammy shakes his head. 

“You won’t be left alone again Sammy, nobody else will…” Emily trails off unsure how to say ‘fucking try to murder you’ apprently. 

Sammy wants to argue that Ben didn’t leave him alone. He went to the bathroom for fuck’s sake. But Lily finishes up what Emily started to explain. 

“No one is coming in this room that’s not fully vetted by Troy, Sammy. And Emily, me, and Betty aren’t leaving this room anytime soon either. You’re safe.”

‘That’s what I thought before’, Sammy wants to argue. But he doesn’t. 

“Sammy, hun, we have you,” Emily tags in.

But it’s Betty that stabs (pun intended) in the final straw. “Benny won’t be able to rest like he needs to if he sees you hurting like this, Sammy.”

Sammy’s chest is tight. He’s so damn scared. 

But they won’t let him get over-dosed again. Right?

The doc must see it in his face that he’s ready to give in because she asks: “What is your pain level?”

“I dunno. Eight...nine?... Worst it’s been since I woke up.” Sammy answers.

“Okay. Thank you. We’re going to try and get you down to at least a place where you’re not vibrating from the pain.” Wow. This doc is snarky and he loves it, a bit. “We can do small doses and check in about every fifteen minutes until we find the happy medium between not being in excruciating pain but not so bad you feel anything remotely like you did last night. How’s that sound?”

Sammy nods. 

The doc smiles and promises to be right back. 

Sammy sits in the silence for all of ten seconds before he turns his head to look at Betty. 

“Betty, I’m—“

“—I swear to fuck, Stevens--” Lily shouts, cutting him off. 

Sammy flinches. Reminding them that a) people have tried to murder him an awful lot in the last few days and therefore he’s a bit jumpy and b) that he has a lot of broken bones and they all hurt, which his wince proves. To his surprise, Lily breaks off mid-shouting and mumbles a ‘sorry.’

Betty smiles, all the same, as if he didn’t just flinch. “Don’t worry, Lily,” she starts. “Sammy would never apologize to me for having a panic attack after a genuinely horrific night! Right, Sammy?”

Sammy sees so much of Ben in the smile aimed at him. He realizes she expects an answer. “Oh. Right.”

Lily snorts. “Just about as convincing as you were trying to tell that doc you weren’t in pain.”

Sammy looks back to Lily. He’s silent for a long moment. Deciding to let it go or not. Then remembers the decision he made sometime after his brain came back online - post Narcan - and decides to let her snarky comment go in lieu of asking: “Lily do you have your phone?” 

“Of course,” she holds it up, confused by the subject change but used to his shit. She looks worried like he's changing the subject to deflect.

He’s not. Okay. Maybe a little. But this is important. “Message Troy. Tell him to release the video.” His voice doesn’t even shake all that much when he says it. 

“No shit?”

“No shit.”

Fuck the Science Institute for trying to kill his best friend.

**Author's Note:**

> tw for: medical things including opiate pain medication use, Sammy being his usual self when it comes to himself (meaning there is a lot of ableism and self-directed anger in Sammy right now, he calls himself a 'pussy' quite a lot), the aftermath of torture, PTSD like symptoms that include a flashback, and Sammy has several panic attacks. there will be an attempted murder via morphine overdose, and administration of Narcan, as well as violence and a stabbing...but that's not in chapter 1. 
> 
> As always, please let me know if you think I should have tagged something and didn't! <3


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